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Topic: Global warming - are we to blame? (Read 5446 times)

Just finished watching 'Jesus Camp' on you tube. Scary stuff, but somehow understandable considering the way Baptist Ministries are followed in the US.

My point though is this - there is a part where one of the teachers talks about the earth's resources; water, oil etc. He says to the children "use as much as you like, don’t worry, it’s a story made up by our government. There is no problem. Take as much as you need. When the earth's resources are used up, we will all move onto to heaven as we have lived sinless lives", or words to that effect.

My thoughts have always been that global warming is beyond our control. I have always thought that the earth and atmosphere is way more powerful than we give it credit for. Surely little old us cannot affect the globe that much! Yeah, we should recycle and watch what we do, but I have confidence that technology will find alternatives to travel/fuel etc. The globe can look after itself.

Science has showed that over the history of the earth, it has gone through many extreme climate changes millions of years before humanity. I still maintain that our existence here on earth will end with an event we never predicted (and I don’t mean divine intervention). It will probably be a global earthquake, super duper mega tsunami, volcanic eruption/gases or something. Doesn’t worry me though. What does worry me is nuclear power in the hands of people who think they have their chosen God on their side!!

So, amazingly in a weird way, this was one thing that I found myself agreeing with in what was a very sad documentary. I just hope my great, great, great grandchildren are bought up in a religion free world.

(1) The people who maintain the temperature statistics have been caught lying again and again,(2) "Global cooling" hysteria,(3) outright lies about a consensus,(4) All of the oil we're burning would've ended up being pushed into the mantle anyways, where it would mix in with magma and, at some point, most of it would undergo combustion. In other words, the oil is destined to burn sooner or later. That's not to say that we aren't altering the natural process, but we aren't talking about nuclear fission here; combustion of oil & gas naturally and commonly occurs on the planet.

When it comes to the extinction of mankind, only massive and widespread volcanic eruption, out of the ones you listed, could kill off man. The others can hypothetically knock a few million off, but it won't bring about extinction.

Doesn't it make you mad when you are lied to and not told the entire truth? Shouldn't energy policies be made that benefit all of us and not just a few people who want to control every area of our lives? The sad fact is that liberal Democrats want to control where you live, how you live, what you do for fun; what you eat, smoke, drink; and what you drive and how far. They will not be happy until they control every area of your life just like in the books, Brave New World, Atlas Shrugged, or 1984. Ask yourself: How many of my freedoms have I given up to liberal politicians and their sycophants the radical environmentalists? How much oil and natural gas are they keeping our nation from utilizing? What is keeping gas so high and out of your car? Take a look at the map below and see for yourselves!

We have more than enough oil to fuel our industry and autos, but the Democrats and radical environmentalists are keeping the American people from it, making us dependent upon foreign oil. This is not only anti-American it is dangerous. It is people like Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Patty Murray, Ron Wyden, and Maria Cantwell that have kept the USA under the boot heel of the Saudis and OPEC. Think about that for a moment and realize just who has controlled Congress and our energy policies the most in the last 25 years? Democrats. In fact, Democrats have controlled Congress for the vast majority of years since the 1940s, and look at what we have gotten for it. Fewer refineries, more restrictions, less drilling and dependency upon radical foreign governments like Venezuela. Gas taxes and ethanol subsidies make up for over $2 a gallon in what you pay at the pump! In fact, you end up paying several times over in taxes for ethanol with farm subsidies, ethanol research, ethanol subsidies, and then the extra tax on refineries to retool and make ethanol blends. Thank you liberal Democrats for the mess you have placed us in.

Now, I agree that Republicans rolled over like lapdogs for the left when they ran Congress, but having a liberal Democratic congress and a liberal neo-communist for a President should frighten you. Remember Barack Obama told a crowd in Portland, OR: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK." As I have written before, "Do you fully understand what he is implying here? He wants you to feel guilt over being an American and enjoying the freedom of choice and your ability to buy what you want when you want it. Now, honestly ask yourself, 'What has Senator Obama himself done to help ease pump prices in Congress?' Nothing! Nada! Zip! We have no new refineries, no new drilling, no new ideas on how to develop our own resources so we are not dependent upon foreign oil. Conservation is fine, but it does not increase oil production now nor does it bring down energy prices ever. In fact, it will raise them if we adopt the Kyoto Accord. The Democrat’s and Obama’s answer, like all elitists, is the same: 'Drive less, ride mass transit, wear a sweater and turn your heat down!'"

Did you know that we could be using natural gas to fuel our autos and we have literally enough natural gas to last us for decades if not hundreds of years! But again, thanks to liberal politicians and radical environmentalists we cannot use, drill, or explore for this abundant resource. In fact, natural gas is replenishable!

Recent estimates by Minerals Management Service and U.S. Geologic Survey for future undiscovered natural gas resources range as high as 1042 Tcf, enough to last more than 47 years at current production rates.

There are 197 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) of technically recoverable natural gas in the Rockies alone - enough to power more than 50 million homes for 60 years.

The Rockies' share of the lower-48 production will grow from 23 percent in 2003 to 29 percent in 2030.

Government policies restricting access and development have placed substantial, new natural gas supplies "off limits" - approximately 135 Tcf, or enough natural gas to heat more than 60 million homes for 30 years. Lawsuits block development of even more.

I go with the scientific consensus; anthropogenic climate change is a reality.

Yet, let's say it isn't. Let's say what humans have done so far has had no significant impact. The climate is still changing. If it is shown that we are not to blame for the change, we have to decide if we want to do something about it. To say we can not do anything is short sighted. Off the top of my head; We could pump dust or another substance into the atmosphere using a variety of methods to increase the amount of sun light that is being reflected into space. Or we could induce a few volcanic eruptions to slow the warming trend. Are either of these tactics practical? Maybe not, but why give up so fast on any solutions?

Bottom line: Even if we are not to blame, we still have a problem to deal with.

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Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. --Michael Shermer

The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. --Sir James George Frazer

Please, warrior. The idea that we're sitting on oceans of oil that can power us indefinitely is simply not supported by the evidence.

Even oilmen like T. Boone Pickens and top oil company executives say we can't drill our way out of the crisis, and they're not liberal Democrats. We have 3% of the world's reserves and use 25% of the world's production.

I'm not saying we shouldn't keep drilling, but at best it's a stopgap measure that can boost our production very moderately for a few years.

Even if there is still lots of oil to last a long time, and we aren't changing the environment with our pollution etc, we should still try to maintain a small footprint. It's obvious that eventually, if you cram enough people on the planet and those people pollute enough and use enough oil, that we will start to have an impact. The disagreement is simply how many people is too many. Of course, every scientist I've ever come into contact with thinks that not only are we having an impact, but that it is too late to actually stop it because we have pushed earth so far... I don't know where anyone is getting the idea that we aren't having a huge impact. Have you ever travelled? People are everywhere.

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When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised, the Lord doesn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked Him to forgive me. - Emo Philips

As we are drilling in the US now we export over 1 million barrels a day. the US ranks 17th in the world in export. More drilling could lead to larger exports. Maybe the US could keep what its now exporting?

look at the source of the information that your looking at. API http://www.energytomorrow.org/index.html

API is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America's oil and natural gas industry. Our 400 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry <<< taken directly from the website.

these are the assholes charging us 4.00 per gallon, and your baseing all of your arguments on their information. Do you think they could possibly be bias? Yes i understand that the price of oil crude goes up and down. But that dosen't explain why they are making all time record profits.

Remeber when tabacco companies would fund bogus companies claiming that ciggaretts didn't cause lung cancer? Same thing exxon is doing, with global warming. and some of you less informed people are buyin it hook line and sinker (WARRIOR)

Also you have to understand that it's not just an issue of global warming, there is also gobal pollution, all the toxins we dump into the enviorment, all the chemicals that seap into worldwide ecosystems, because we are poisioning ourself in the short term (remeber love cannal) over the long term the pollution would be reduced by nature but the shear number of chemicals introduced into the enviroment is devestating, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_pollution

30 year's ago brazil was facing the same oil outlook that the usa was, and for whatever reason ( i wasn't even born yet ) the usa decied to totally ignore the idea of looking for oil alternatives, So now brazil is run on sugar cane...

Now we know we can't develope a sugar cane based economy we don't have as much sugar cane, But the point is that if we make the commitment as a whole to change out outlook on the future of energy we could change out dependance on oil all together. NO one is sayin that it will happen overnight, it's a gradual proceess over decades. Oil drilling and natural gas is finite even if it's 100 years or 200 year's or 500 years... eventually it will run out that's a fact...

the only people dragging their feet on this change concept are the oil companies who are funding massive amounts of public misinformation about global warming, and the impact of their industires activities on the planet.

if you don't belive that burnning gas from cars are harmful... go into your garage and close the doors and windows and run your car and sit there for a few minutes. (do not really do this you'll die) now look at what millions of commuters do in LA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog

global warming is only the effects of burning fossil fuels on the macro level, but even on the micro level it's dangerious and harmful to people and the enviroment, and we can see the micro level alot clearer with acid rain and smog and stayin in a garage with a car running,

fossil fuels arn't just inconvenicing us in 100 year's by changing the global tempature, they are effecting our ecosystems on a daily basis, and that's why alternatives to burning toxic fossil fuels must be found, it's not a democratic conspicary or a republican one, it's just the oil industry tryin to keep people away from not buying their product (like tabacco did). if we lived in brazil we'd already be self sufficant, If brazil can do it we can do it, then we won't have to deal with exxon or the islamic fundamentalists. (sometimes it's hard to tell which is worse)

My POV is that the only reason why 2 thin solar companies just had other investment groups plow $400 million USD into them the other day is that there is economic pressure for solar that was not there before. I've looked at some of the numbers, and we are at a tipping point. Gas is expensive enough that the pain of paying for it has forced people to think and buy cars differently. That influx of investment has allowed companies to invest in better equipment, hire more people, and to perform research and apply smarter product design.

I expect this influx of investment will cause the oil companies to cut profits somewhat so that they don't get replaced as fast as a primary source of transportation fuel.

If the oil companies do have these enormous surpluses just waiting to be tapped, I'd expect them to be able to drop fuel costs just to the point where the electric car companies can't invest in new technology properly. If, as I suspect, they don't have these surpluses, and we are well past peak oil, they will not be able to keep prices down very much and the incentive for many companies to produce the replacement for gasoline will be enough to have it happen.

(Not that corporations are entirely rational. They tend to be wasteful and short sighted pushing short term stock prices over long term profits.)

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Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. --Michael Shermer

The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. --Sir James George Frazer

I invest in oil somewhat, so I've done a bit of my homework, and my impression is that we have passed peak oil in just the last couple years. The most obvious sign of this is how oil prices have gone from like $50 to $120(ish) in 3 years. We all though $50 was the turning point. It probably was.

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When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised, the Lord doesn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked Him to forgive me. - Emo Philips

What that movie skimmed over were the battery costs especially when compared to the cost of gasoline.

At the time the cars were produced, it did not make sense to sell them.

Now, because of gasoline costs, the research needed to figure out how to reduce the cost of the batteries is being performed and it looks very doable. In the long run, I'm guessing it will be substantially cheaper to produce an electric car with superior performance to a gas model and much lower operating costs.

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Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. --Michael Shermer

The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. --Sir James George Frazer

Please, warrior. The idea that we're sitting on oceans of oil that can power us indefinitely is simply not supported by the evidence.

Even oilmen like T. Boone Pickens and top oil company executives say we can't drill our way out of the crisis, and they're not liberal Democrats. We have 3% of the world's reserves and use 25% of the world's production.

I'm not saying we shouldn't keep drilling, but at best it's a stopgap measure that can boost our production very moderately for a few years.

Please, warrior. The idea that we're sitting on oceans of oil that can power us indefinitely is simply not supported by the evidence.

Even oilmen like T. Boone Pickens and top oil company executives say we can't drill our way out of the crisis, and they're not liberal Democrats. We have 3% of the world's reserves and use 25% of the world's production.

I'm not saying we shouldn't keep drilling, but at best it's a stopgap measure that can boost our production very moderately for a few years.

That's a joke, right?

We've got far more oil than any nation in the world.

The only issue is that it's in shale.

That's true, we have huge deposits of shale oil, although that has nothing to do with the drilling issue.

As I understood it, most of the shale resources were economically unfeasible to process, but maybe that's changed with the rise in prices. Wikipedia says

Quote

As a developing fuel source the production and processing costs for oil shale are high due to the small nature of the projects and the specialist technology involved. A full-scale project to develop oil shales would require heavy investment and could potentially leave businesses vulnerable should the oil price drop, as the cost of producing the oil would exceed the price they could obtain for the oil.

At least the Al Gore kind.I do believe in global poisioning however.Whether earth warms.cools,or stays about the same temperature wise won't matter if we're all dead from asthma.We need to concentrate on cleaning the junk from our air and water rather than talk of warming.Personally if earth could warm just a little with no other consequence I'd be all for it!It would much easier to cause another ice age than a runaway greenhouse effect like the one on Venus.Ice ages are a natural part of earth's history,and there WILL be another one,manmade or nature made.All it would take would be for 3 volcanoes the intensity of Mt Pinatubo to erupt the same year and we'd be in an ice age no human activity could stop.

I never even heard of this board till a few days ago.I never heard of onestewart(I presume that's some user).I take global pollution very seriously,just not that warming is a result.Through most of north america the 1980's were one of the coldest decades on record.The return to a more typical climate has been incorrectly linked to the pollution problem.If anything the short term result should be cooling(global dimming).If co2 gas percentages rising was the only change then warming would occurr,but huge amounts of particulate matter are also released,blocking some of the sun's rays and reflecting more heat back into space.That's why nuclear war would produce an ice age as a by product.With so many massive fires raging nowdays a huge amount of sun blocking smoke is being released,and by the time it settles out more smoke has replaced it.I do believe our overpopulated earth may have a bleak future if changes aren't made,but it'll be a cold bleak future,not a warm one.

Please, warrior. The idea that we're sitting on oceans of oil that can power us indefinitely is simply not supported by the evidence.

Even oilmen like T. Boone Pickens and top oil company executives say we can't drill our way out of the crisis, and they're not liberal Democrats. We have 3% of the world's reserves and use 25% of the world's production.

I'm not saying we shouldn't keep drilling, but at best it's a stopgap measure that can boost our production very moderately for a few years.

That's a joke, right?

We've got far more oil than any nation in the world.

The only issue is that it's in shale.

That's true, we have huge deposits of shale oil, although that has nothing to do with the drilling issue.

As I understood it, most of the shale resources were economically unfeasible to process, but maybe that's changed with the rise in prices. Wikipedia says

Quote

As a developing fuel source the production and processing costs for oil shale are high due to the small nature of the projects and the specialist technology involved. A full-scale project to develop oil shales would require heavy investment and could potentially leave businesses vulnerable should the oil price drop, as the cost of producing the oil would exceed the price they could obtain for the oil.

Why aren't people talking about this more, instead of all the focus on offshore drilling?

If they started using the shale, we would perfect the process and knock the price down a lot. Price of a barrel of oil is curently $110-120, and I think, even given our inexperience with working oil shale, we could knock the price of producing from shale down to $50/bbl within the first few years of production.

They're trying to stir up hysteria. Tons of asshole Christians are walking us through the Revelations haunted house. Wars, rumors of wars. Israel. Babylon. The Great Whore. Mayan calendar crap. No more oil. The Earth is about to turn into an uncontrollable furnace... crap like that. The more hysteria, the better... especially the more real they can make it seem. The sky is falling! PRAY! PRAAAAAY! JESUS IS COMING BACK!!!

Too bad the Bible says Revelations already took place a long, long time ago... and too bad it was written by a dude who was probably eating psychedelic mushrooms too.

Please, warrior. The idea that we're sitting on oceans of oil that can power us indefinitely is simply not supported by the evidence.

No, but......

Quote

(CNS News) Let’s start with some sense of the oil resources America could develop if Congress would allow it.

In 2006, the Interior Department estimated that about 85.9 billion barrels of “undiscovered technically recoverable” oil sits offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf within U.S. territory.

In 2007, the Energy Department’s “Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels” reported that: “America’s oil shale resource exceeds 2 trillion barrels, including about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in high quality shale concentrated in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. … Depending on technology and economics, as much as 800 billion barrels of oil equivalent could be recoverable from oil shale resources yielding (more than) 25 gallons per ton.”

This combined 885.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil that the government estimates lies undeveloped within U.S. territory is almost three and a half times as much as the 260 billion barrels in proven oil reserves that lie under Saudi territory.

Imagine basing a country's energy and economic policy on an incomplete, unproven theory -- a theory based entirely on computer models in which one minor variable is considered the sole driver for the entire global climate system.

This is precisely what Al Gore, U.S. Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer and others want their nation to do. They expect Americans to accept on blind faith the thesis that human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing catastrophic climate change. Boxer, Gore and their allies readily resort to emotional bullying against anyone who dares question this dogma. Their pronouncements -- Boxer's juvenile "the American people have the will to slow, stop and reverse global warming" is a prime example - are merely displays of arrogance that expose their lack of basic science understanding (or their complete disrespect of public intelligence). The policies they advocate are wholly unjustified scientifically and have extraordinarily damaging economic implications for the developed world.

Back to oil shale, what's preventing development of this huge resource? It seems like technology and economics have been standing in the way, not a few Democrats in Congress who oppose more offshore drilling. (The offshore and ANWR debates have nothing to do with oil shale.) I think we don't hear much about this because at the moment the right-wingers are more concerned with scoring points in an election year than they are with solving America's energy crisis.

warrior once again you need to check your source.... Timothy Ball, You have to find someone who is reporting for the sake of reporting, not getting paid to voice misinformation for one side of an argument. What's the differance between the majoirity of the scientific community who supports global warming and timothy ball. If your unbias (not getting paid) and your a legitimate scientiest you will look at the global warming data and you will see that timothy ball is full of s**t.

Dan Johnson, a professor of environmental science at the University of Lethbridge, wrote in an April 23, 2006 letter to the editor of the The Calgary Herald in reply to an editorial by Dr. Ball: "... he does not have the academic background and qualifications to make serious comments on global warming". The newspaper had credited Ball as "the first climatology PhD in Canada and worked as a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years."[11]. His biography for the George C. Marshall Institute also cites his being "a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years".[12], and he has repeated "the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology" [13] Ball could not have been a professor before receiving his PhD in 1983, only 23 years before the article. Ball has also stated that "for 32 years I was a Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg."[13] Ball's resume shows that at the University of Winnipeg he was Associate Professor from 1984 to 1988, then Professor from 1988 to 1996, a total of 8 years.[14] Ball was not "the first climatology PhD in Canada", but was in fact preceded by many well known Canadian PhD climatologists: e.g. Dr. Kenneth Hare, PhD in arctic climatology, 1950 [15], Dr. André Robert, PhD, 1965, [16], or Dr. Timothy Oke, PhD 1967 [17].

In September, 2006, Ball filed suit against Johnson and four editors at the Calgary Herald newspaper for $325,000 for, among other things, “damages to his income earning capacity as a sought after speaker with respect to global warming”.[18]. In its response (point 50(d), p12), the Calgary Herald stated that “The Plaintiff (Dr. Ball) is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist.”(Original statement of claim, Defendant Johnson's answer, Defendant Calgary Herald's answer). In June 2007, Ball abandoned the suit. ( check out wiki artical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball don't like wiki.. well download the original sources in the lawsuit. )

when his credibility was questioned as a legitimate scientiest he pussied out because he knew he was a fraud.... Any real scienst would have had a case and would have taken them to court and won. but not ball because he's funded by oil industries.

people planting misinfromation just to get paid is not a place to get your information from, and once again warrior your eating up their bulls**t... how does it taste?

Just finished watching 'Jesus Camp' on you tube. Scary stuff, but somehow understandable considering the way Baptist Ministries are followed in the US.

My point though is this - there is a part where one of the teachers talks about the earth's resources; water, oil etc. He says to the children "use as much as you like, don’t worry, it’s a story made up by our government. There is no problem. Take as much as you need. When the earth's resources are used up, we will all move onto to heaven as we have lived sinless lives", or words to that effect.

My thoughts have always been that global warming is beyond our control. I have always thought that the earth and atmosphere is way more powerful than we give it credit for. Surely little old us cannot affect the globe that much! Yeah, we should recycle and watch what we do, but I have confidence that technology will find alternatives to travel/fuel etc. The globe can look after itself.

Science has showed that over the history of the earth, it has gone through many extreme climate changes millions of years before humanity. I still maintain that our existence here on earth will end with an event we never predicted (and I don’t mean divine intervention). It will probably be a global earthquake, super duper mega tsunami, volcanic eruption/gases or something. Doesn’t worry me though. What does worry me is nuclear power in the hands of people who think they have their chosen God on their side!!

So, amazingly in a weird way, this was one thing that I found myself agreeing with in what was a very sad documentary. I just hope my great, great, great grandchildren are bought up in a religion free world.

Sure, the atmosphere is powerful, but that carbon dioxide isn't going to magically just float off into space, especially because its denser than most other gasses in the air.

It isn't also magically leaking out of cracks in the ground. Sure, couple volcanoes here and there, but nothing but the breath of animals, few vents here and there. It is us. We have to do something.

The only thing that gets CO2 out of the air is plants, and some special chemical compounds.

Sure, the atmosphere is powerful, but that carbon dioxide isn't going to magically just float off into space, especially because its denser than most other gasses in the air.

It isn't also magically leaking out of cracks in the ground. Sure, couple volcanoes here and there, but nothing but the breath of animals, few vents here and there. It is us. We have to do something.

The only thing that gets CO2 out of the air is plants, and some special chemical compounds.

"Greenhouse gases" are made by all sorts of natural processes. Biodegradation is the #1 producer of methane and NO2, for example, which are much more powerful greenhouse gases per unit volume than CO2.